Article by Malcolm Gladwell worth a look

Here’s an interesting article written by Malcolm Gladwell of the New Yorker. The article is about spotting talent. What interested me most about the article is the discussion about finding good teachers. He argues that good teachers are like good NFL quarterbacks – it isn’t clear how what is done in college will translate into the classroom or field, and he states rather flatly at one point that “no one knows what a person with the potential to be a great teacher looks like.” Yet research has shown there is an enormous difference in learning among students who have good teachers and those who have bad ones.

Originally Posted by Malcolm Gladwell
the students of a very bad teacher will learn, on average, half a year’s worth of material in one school year. The students in the class of a very good teacher will learn a year and a half’s worth of material. That difference amounts to a year’s worth of learning in a single year. Teacher effects dwarf school effects: your child is actually better off in a “bad” school with an excellent teacher than in an excellent school with a bad teacher. Teacher effects are also much stronger than class-size effects.

WEST-B Test Site Rules

Of course, those applying to take the WEST-B exam and hopefully move on to a career in the teaching field will be no strangers to rules. In fact, if they are successful in becoming teachers themselves, adherence to a set of rules will be something they will undoubtedly expect from their students. So the test site rules for the WEST-B test are understandably strict to ensure that everyone taking the test starts out and remains on a level playing field in a safe comfortable environment.

The first of these rules is one most of us are already used to. In fact the prohibition of smoking and the use of all tobacco products during the WEST-B exam has become so commonplace in all other areas of society that it should come as no surprise at all that they’re banned at the test site.

Visitors are also restricted from entering to visit subjects as they take the WEST-B exam and there are several obvious reasons for this. Relatives, children and friends at the site could very well cause a distraction to the others who are taking the WEST-B exam even if they are attempting to be well behaved and quiet. Children especially can cause a lot of noise in an otherwise quiet environment without even meaning to. There is also the concern that some of the less trustworthy applicants might have some relative or friend try and sneak some manner of information in for them.

There are also a variety of electronic devices that are prohibited from use at the WEST-B test site and these are banned for fairly obvious reasons. Perhaps because some applicants would do almost anything to pass the WEST-B exam and feel they lack the proper credentials to do it on their own, calculators are prohibited as are cell phones and a host of other electronic media that includes pagers, computers, removable storage devices and any photographic or recording devices.

Along these same lines, there are a host of printed materials that are prohibited from the WEST-B test site. These include dictionaries, textbooks, notebooks and any kind of scratch paper. It should be easy to see why these materials would be banned as they possibly constitute another method of cheating on the WEST-B exam.

For less nefarious reasons food and drink are also strictly controlled at the WEST-B exam site. Water bottles may be allowed in the testing room, provided they are clear, do not have a label, have a secure lid, and are stored under your seat, not on your desk, during testing.

Finally, there are to be no aids brought into the WEST-B exam. The type of items suggested here include devices to aid in translation and slide rules and such. The administrators don’t want the applicants to have any artificial advantages when they take the WEST-B test.

For the official “Test Site Rules” visit the official Washington Educator Skills Test-Basic (WEST) Web Site.